THE UNITY OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 63 



No indeed, especially when we take into account all which exists in 

 him. And I am sure that in this respect you all agree with me. 



Certainly none of you would wish to be compared with cattle that 

 ruminate, with hogs that wallow in the mire. Nor would you wish to 

 be classed with the dog, notwithstanding all the qualities which make 

 him the friend and companion of man ; nor with the horse, though it 

 should be with Gladiator, 



Man is not an animal. He is widely distinguished from animals by 

 numerous and important characters of different sorts. I shall here only 

 refer to his intellectual superiority, to which belongs articulate speech, 

 so that each people has its special language ; writing, which permits 

 the reproduction of this language ; the fine arts, by the aid of which 

 he conveys, and, in some sort, materializes the conceptions of his imagi- 

 nation. But he is distinguished from all animals by two fundamental 

 characters which pertain only to him. Man is the only one among or- 

 ganized and living beings who has the abstract sentiment of good and 

 evil ; in him alone, consequently, exists moral sense. 



He is also alone in the belief that there will be something after this 

 life, and in the recognition of a Supreme Being, who can influence his 

 life for good or for evil. It is upon this double idea that the great fact 

 of religion rests. 



By-and-by these two questions of morals and religion will turn up 

 again. We shall, I repeat, examine them, not as theologians, but 

 simply as naturalists. I will only say for the present that man, every- 

 where, however savage he may be, shows some signs of morality and 

 of religion that we never find among animals. 



Hence man is a being apart, separated from animals by two great 

 characters, which, I repeat, distinguish him yet more than his incon- 

 testable intellectual superiority. 



But here the differences end. So far as the body is concerned, 

 man is an animal, nothing more, nothing less. Except some differences 

 of form and disposition, he is the equal, only the equal, of the superior 

 animals that surround him. 



If we take, for terms of comparison, the species that approach us 

 nearest in general form, anatomy shows us that our organs are exactly 

 the same as theirs. We can trace in them, almost muscle by muscle 

 and nerve by nerve, those which we find in man himself. 



Physiology, in its turn, shows us, in the body of man, the organs, 

 muscles, nerves, performing exactly the same functions as in the ani- 

 mal. This is a capital fact which daily profits us, both from a purely 

 scientific and from a practical point of view. We cannot experiment 

 upon man we can upon animals. Human physiology has employed 

 this means to discover the functions of our organs. Physicians go 

 further still ; they bring to the sick-bed the fruit of experiments made 

 upon animals. Anthropology also, as we have just seen, applies to 

 these inferior creatures for very important instruction. 



